Thursday, January 28, 2010

This has always been the most unresolved mysteries of all time, because it involves the supposedly "inexplicable" brain of a woman. So, I decided to do a bit of research. Of course, it helps when you're a woman yourself! :P

So, what do we really want when it comes to a man, a relationship, a long-term commitment? At the end of the day, all a woman wants is someone kind and considerate with the persona of a gentleman but that's not enough to get noticed! It takes a lot more than just that!

When we go partying, to a club or just about anywhere, we like to see men who stand out. Be it the stand-up comedian performing on stage, the bartender juggling his cocktails, the guitarist strumming the chords of "Hotel California", we get easily attracted to men who are "different" from the rest.

For most of us, "confidence" is the key. If you've got it, you've got us. "Over-confidence" is a big turn-off !! You'd rather be shaky than be more than what you should be. A man who is sure of himself, surely knows how to take care of his lady and that speaks a lot in itself.

Romance is important, and there is more to romance than just candies and flowers. We love and appreciate it more when a guy does something for us. More than just materialistic gifts, we like it when you sing for us, write about us, or if you're an artist- paint us a portrait! It's not only flattering, but the love that goes along with so much of effort shows. We can easily tell when it's done from the heart. It need not be all perfect. We like it when you goof up whilst trying to be romantic! :D

We love unpredictability and spontaneity as well. Almost all of us have seen and laughed at the Hero Honda commercial where the guy drives to his girlfriend's house to wish her "Goodnight" in the middle of the night! It may look like the guy's out of his mind and that in real life, he's sure to get slapped but that's not so. We like it when guys are spontaneous- taking us out on an unplanned road-trip to a place you really like is a HIT! :) However, this should be done only when you've met the girl a good number of times, else you'll end up freaking her out!

Intelligence is a turn ON as well. I'm not very sure about geeks and nerds, but witty intelligence is sure to attract! Funny one-liners at the right time and good humour show how clever you are and we totally fall for that!

Looks aren't as important as presentability. It's enough if you can carry yourself well. (No offence to the new Mens' fairness cream product manufacturers! :D)

Violence is a big NO. Although we like guys who fight (defend) for us, we despise hooligans who unnecessarily call a fight on themselves to "impress".

Possessing one or more of these qualities is enough to get women to notice you and fall for you.

By the way, for all you F.R.I.E.N.D.S. fans (me included), Chandler's got ALMOST all of these traits !! He does lack confidence (he is insecure when it comes to marriage), but he's got romance (remember the candle-light theme when he proposes Monica for marriage?) and unpredictability (remember how he runs away from home on the day of his wedding? :D okay, that episode does not really account for his unpredictability in a way that we want to mention here, but there have been a lot of times when he's been totally unpredictable- sex on a hospital bed is one of those!) and wit (do I even need to state an example?). He totally rocks! :D

For a relationship, of course, trust, body chemistry and a few other factors would matter.

And as I mentioned before, for a long-term commitment, a woman looks for someone who respects her and loves her just the same. Yes, someone who would hold the door out for her when she walks into a room; someone who would kiss her forehead and tell her she looks beautiful even after she's just up and looks sloshed. Though it sounds too commonplace, it's true!

Lastly, be yourself. That's more important than anything else. Honesty (also to yourself) needs to be maintained through all phases of any relationship. It's a #WIN. :P

Friday, January 15, 2010

For one thing, I finally enrolled for a dance class. It's a package of Salsa, Jive and Waltz and my first Jive session rocked this Sunday. I am born with two left feet and rarely shake a leg at parties, so you see, taking up these classes and dancing with everyone there was a Herculean task for me! But, I did it! And I'm glad! :) I don't aspire to be a great dancer someday but I do want to stop feeling self-conscious when I'm dancing and I'm hoping these sessions serve that purpose! :D

The session began with a small 10-minute warm up session followed by basic Jive positions, feet-tapping, bending and styling! By the end of the class, we were able to dance a bit to the tunes of "Tricky Tricky". Needless to mention, after my class got over and I came home, my friends poked me with one question: "So, who's your partner?" ;) I too was secretly hoping to jive with a cutie :P but we have to keep changing partners for every step so that we get to know everyone in class! Everyone's a beginner there and the instructors are really patient with us- atleast they were on the first day!

I went to see off Mona at the airport that evening. She has gone to Delhi for her training at Indigo Airlines, and this post that I had written sometime back was actually meant for her! I'm missing her already, just hoping she settles soon!

I also met a LOT of people this week!

The Chai Tweetup last Friday was awesome. Kudos to Mihir for organising it! :)

Wagh Bakri Tea Lounge at Vile Parle (E) was the venue and more people turned up than we expected adding to the fun.

Mona and I entered at first, not knowing where everyone else was seated. We couldn't spot anyone we knew and rushed outside to call Mihir. He was still on his way there and forced us to go back in and start talking to the others. And so, we went back in. After about 30 minutes of awkwardness and two cups of Adhrak Chai, we started jabbering away and ended up meeting some really awesome people there!

We had an amazing time and all of us spammed the Twitter timeline with #chai tweetup tweets once we got back home!

I met up with friends from my old workplace the next day. A lot had changed with respect to weight and hairstyles (Calvin looks really different without his beard!!) but we had just as much fun as we always used to have when we were together. The best part is, even after I met up with them after more than a month, I went back home with cheeks that hurt by laughing too much. There is some thing about certain people that never lets any amount of time cause a distance to crop up between them, and I hope it always stays that way. :)

I met up with college friends a day later and they said I had pulled down. Have I? It's not really a good thing because I am already underweight. Moreover, I thought I'd have gained a lot of it considering I spend most part of the day at home (this week being an exception!).

A day after that, a few of us met up with our friend Oscar who was back in India after a year and was going back to the States on Sunday. We had a great time hogging at Mondy's (that waiter has taken a dislike towards me only for the fact that the place seemed to be out of all that I ordered for!! :D) and walking down the streets of South Bombay talking, laughing and commenting on every little object of amusement.

So, it's rightly said that there are some things money can never buy. :-)

There is ONE thing that it CAN though- a cellphone!!!

If you've been following my tweets, you'd know my cellphone got confiscated by a professor in college today only because it vibrated on the table that I had kept it on. It was on silent mode. Can you believe that? And she refused to give it back to me until tomorrow, but I highly doubt she'll let me have it back that easily. I just hope I don't have to pay a fine, I didn't really "use" it, it vibrated by itself! :(

In a way, I did need a break after a long week, and no cellphone means not having to attend useless calls from network providers and insurance companies (those are usually the ones who miss me the most :P) so I guess it's okay.

Now, I need to start giving more attention than I did to work and my books :)

Sunday, January 10, 2010

I don't know what's happening. Or what I'm afraid of. Things are getting pretty better with me now, but it's maybe because I've been spending a lot of time with someone I trust and that 'someone' is going away tomorrow. I'm going to miss her!

I never thought I would, honestly. But lately, now that things were getting back to what they were, I really would have loved to have you around. I'm sorry about whatever happened last year but deep down, I knew we'd be back together the way we were eventually, cuz I guess we need each other, we're just meant to be that close and have stuck together for more than seven years now. Yes, it's really been that long. Time flies I know! I am not very expressive in person so thought I'd say it here- I'll miss you.

I want you to be happy and occupied with the best of things around you. I hope things work out well for you but I want you to know that you can be happy wherever you want to be. Just believe in this and someday, you'll know. It can be very hard to feel happy sometimes; I have trouble with it myself but you know what, it's not something you look for, it's something you are. It's only when you're sad again that you realise you were happy. Okay, I don't want to go ahead with another philosophy lecture or try to promote "The Secret" again! :P Just take care of yourself. Work, tweet, chat, click photos, read, watch as many movies as you can, listen to music and have a hot cuppa ginger chai every evening - and you'll never feel away from home :) I know it's easier said than done but when it gets harder, you know you're just one call away. So, take care again. Muaah. Lots of Love.

I guess I'm back to being alone now. Everyone takes leave sooner or later. Going back to finding myself now. It's all a big question mark. There were a lot of things that I had lost and I got them back but there's one part of my life I would never want to return to. I don't know when or if I'd even open myself to it. It's scary and I'm not ready yet. Maybe I never will be.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Ever met an online friend in real life and felt you were meeting a completely different person - an impostor? This happens almost 9 out of 10 times with friends you meet off the net or phone and we are never able to explain to ourselves why we feel oddly different when it's the same person. Even though you've seen his/her pictures, you feel different. This also ends up ruining the friendship sometimes. We feel guilty for feeling that way and are not able to understand why.

Last night, I was talking to a friend about how friendships develop and how we have sets of friends- college friends, work friends, bus friends, train friends, phone friends, chat friends, blog friends etc. This led to a whole different discussion about how different phone friends or chat friends can be in real life.
We gave it a lot of thought (one of the consequences of having a lot of free time- starting random discussions and then attempting at drawing conclusions out of them! :P) and figured why we feel this way. When we talk to someone on the phone or online, we make a mental picture of them- a mental image of their personality . We unknowingly create a definition of the person's image. We might have seen the person in photos but we tend to create a different image of his/her personality. This image becomes stronger as we talk to the person more and more. So, when we finally meet the person in real life, and if the looks of the person don't match our imagination of his/her personality, we feel disappointed. We feel like we've met an impostor. It all happens because we don't get what we think we will. We don't feel the same attachment to the person and that makes us feel guilty.

It also happens when we've just been introduced to someone in person once or twice but the friendship has developed fully through some other media.

It's just like going to watch a movie based on the novel after having read the novel. Most of the time, we end up feeling dissatisfied with the movie- why? It's not only because the movie misses out on most of the details. It's mainly because when we read a novel, we build up our own characters, give them their unique personalities and that fits well in the story. When we don't get the same on screen, we feel disheartened. (Not talking about "3 Idiots" and "FPS" here- I strongly believe they cannot be compared as they have two completely different storylines!)

Generally, if we become friends with someone first in person, and then chat online or on the phone, it does not make much of a difference because the image of that person has already been created by us through whatever we've seen and experienced.

I discussed the same with Priyanka (@priyankawriting) on Twitter today. She said that if we accept people for what they are, such differences would not arise. It takes time though, for people to accept others for who they are especially when they've created a different picture of them altogether. Not meeting at all might retain the friendship but that usually doesn't happen. If you know the person well, over time, you automatically feel like you should meet him/her in real life in order to spend more time together. That's when you should be prepared for anything. Never decide what you're going to expect. And never feel guilty- sometimes, even when we go prepared, we subconsciously have some notions and expectations about the person! It's human, and it's okay! :)

Friday, January 1, 2010

A Very Happy New Year to all my readers and friends! :) Hope you had a blast last night and have recovered from your hangovers :P

This year, I don't have any resolutions except for living each day to the fullest and being as happy & worry-free as I can this year! Nissim just passed on this video to me the other day and I loved it. It gives good insight on how to live life- you're sure to love this one too! Follow it for a great year ahead..